20 Cult Favorites That Went Mainstream

Here’s a show that’s gone from mainstream sensation to cult oddity back to mainstream sensation again. “Twin Peaks” drew huge ratings in its first few weeks on the air in 1990, but a combination of poor scheduling (it was up against “Cheers,”then moved to Saturday) and aimless storytelling chased everyone but the die-hards away. Twenty-six years later, the series has been revived with David Lynch directing every episode, and a whole new generation of fans are revved up for the return of Special Agent Dale Cooper.

This 1960s daytime drama attracted a devoted cult following when it introduced vampire Barnabas Collins midway through its first season. Like many Dan Curtis-created shows, “Dark Shadows” embraced the supernatural, and it quickly went from being just another soap opera to a legitimate hit – especially with younger viewers. The series lasted for six seasons, but found new fans in syndication, inspiring two revivals and a feature film from the goth duo of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.

Gene Roddenberry’s “’Wagon Train’ in space” was a hit with sci-fi fans early on, but it didn’t connect with mainstream audiences until syndication. It became so popular that, in 1979, Paramount sunk a then significant $46 million into “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, thus creating a hugely profitable film franchise. “Star Trek” returned to its television roots in 1987 with “The Next Generation”, and is set for yet another small-screen reboot in 2017.

Matt Groening’s animated family first appeared in brief sketches on Fox’s little-watched “The Tracy Ullman Show” (which was part of the network’s very first prime time lineup in 1987). Producer James L. Brooks took note of the brood’s potential, and cleverly kicked off the series with a Christmas episode in 1989. When the series picked up again in January of 1990, it became Fox’s first true ratings smash. Within months, nearly every word out of Bart Simpson’s mouth was a catchphrase. A hit single, “Do the Bartman”, was released later that year, and the show is now in its twenty-eighth season (with a guaranteed renewal until 2019).

Mike Judge’s moronic teenagers were introduced to MTV viewers in 1992 via the network’s animated anthology show, Liquid Television. The short, “Frog Baseball”, found the duo whacking an unfortunate amphibian to death with a baseball bat. The juvenile cruelty was so outrageously stupid that MTV asked Judge to develop a series around the characters. Each episode featured a slender narrative built around Beavis and Butt-Head sitting on their couch and making fun of music videos. Paramount released a feature, “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America”, in 1996, and Judge’s career was off and running.

A decade before he became one of the most popular comedians in the world, Dave Chappelle was slugging it out in the New York City comedy scene. He got booed off the stage at the Apollo Theater’s “Amateur Night” when he was only nineteen, and struggled throughout the ‘90s to find more than a devoted cult following via minor hits like the stoner comedy “Half Baked”. But when he infused his absurd observational stand-up with razor-sharp social commentary with “Chappelle’s Show” in 2003, he became a mainstream sensation.

It’s hard to believe it, but there was actually a time when the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam were considered “alternative” music. None of these bands were well known outside of the Seattle scene until Alice in Chains cracked the Billboard top twenty with “Man in the Box”. That ripple turned into a tidal wave in 1991, when Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” shook the music industry out of its pop-metal slumber. By the end of 1992, grunge was dominating Top 40 radio and blasting out of frat house windows.

The classic pitch-black teen comedy was a box office failure when released to theaters in 1989, grossing only $1.1 million largely because its distributor, New World Pictures, had no idea how to sell it (in their defense, a film playing teen suicide for laughs would be a tough sell in any era). The film immediately became a cult favorite, making Gen X icons out of Winona Ryder and Christian Glover, and was eventually discovered by a wider audience on VHS. It’s since been turned into a musical and a television series.

Almost no one was doing the “Time Warp” when “Rocky Horror Picture Show” hit theaters in 1975. 20^th Century Fox was so disappointed with its box office performance that they canceled its wide release. But a last-ditch effort to transform it into a midnight movie hit paydirt in 1976; over the next few years, people were dressing up in character and performing along with the film. “Rocky Horror” did so well as a midnight movie, Fox refrained from releasing it to home video until 1987, at which point it became a crossover phenomenon.

One of the most beloved and widely quoted movies of the 1990s was largely relegated to cult film until viewers discovered it on home video. As with all cool things, knowing “Dazed and Confused” front-to-back was a valuable piece of cultural currency. Then Matthew McConaughey became a movie star, and soon everyone was saying “Alright, alright, alright.” The film is now a repertory house favorite, and is probably playing somewhere on cable at this very moment.

The cult following for “Fight Club” first formed around Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, which was an edgy, “transgressional” mélange of anti-consumerism and Gen X-er malaise. It was ideal material for David Fincher, who’d established himself as one of the premiere stylists of the 1990s with films like “Se7en” and “The Game”. Despite the presence of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, the film was poorly marketed and hugely underperformed at the box office. But the movie’s following continued to grow over the years, and now everyone talks about “Fight Club”.

When the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ eponymous debut LP was released in 1984, it garnered little acclaim and only found a cult following thanks to heavy rotation on college radio. Their sound was unpolished at first and a tad ahead of its time for the era, failing to fully connect with punk or funk audiences. It wasn’t until 1989’s “Mother’s Milk”, with its hard-rocking cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground”, that the band hit the mainstream. Their next album, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”, turned them into bona fide rock stars.

As with many genre shows, “The X-Files” built up its following by appealing primarily to, well, nerds . Ratings were unspectacular at first, but Fox stuck with the series, sensing there was a wider viewership out there. The show remained popular with critics, and, after a few seasons, more and more people got hooked on the paranormal procedure. It certainly didn’t hurt that stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson had an intoxicating slow-burn chemistry.

It’s considered one of the greatest shows in the history of television now, but when “The Twilight Zone” aired in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was constantly on the verge of cancellation. Creator Rod Serling managed to stay the execution for five seasons, but CBS finally axed the show due to middling ratings and budget concerns. Then came syndication. The tight-as-a-drum scripts appealed to science fiction devotees who recognized names like Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury. Nowadays, everyone instinctively hums the theme whenever something eerie happened in real life.

This wonderful Paul Feig-created comedy about high school misfits never got a fair shake at NBC. It attracted a devoted cult following right from the start, but the network could never figure out how to build on that enthusiasm, and, rather than give the critically acclaimed show time to find an audience (like they did once upon a time with “Cheers”), they canceled it after twelve episodes. The show itself still qualifies as a cult favorite, but the cast of newcomers discovered by producer Judd Apatow – including James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel and Linda Cardellini – went mainstream in a big way.

It’s probably stretching the definition to call J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantastical masterpiece “cult”, but, despite being one of the best-selling books of all time, it wasn’t truly mainstream until Peter Jackson filmed the novel as a trilogy in the early 2000s. Before that, “The Hobbit” was best known to non-geeks because of the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated film. Having grossed $3 billion worldwide, it’s fair to say that “The Lord of the Rings” is now on the mainstream’s radar. 

The ultimate cinephile success story. Quentin Tarantino dazzled audiences and critics at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival with his savagely witty (and just plain savage) tale of a diamond heist gone wrong. The dialogue was thick with pop cultural references, and the soundtrack stuffed with cheesy 1970s hits like “Hooked on a Feeling” and “Stuck in the Middle with You.” The film was not a box office success, but it was a huge hit with college kids; within a year, dorm rooms across the country were plastered with “Reservoir Dogs” posters. Tarantino was a hip secret until 1994, when “Pulp Fiction” made him a household name.

Rap fans knew all about the “Clown Prince of Hip-Hop” years before the lovable big man hit it big with his off-tune warbling of “Just a Friend.” With his inimitable vocal delivery and ungodly beat-boxing skills, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise that mainstream music fans would fall in love with him, too. The man is a national treasure.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics in 1963, the X-Men didn’t really take off until John Byrne and Chris Claremont took the reins in the late 1970s. Backed by storylines like the Dark Phoenix saga and “Days of Future Past” (and the addition of a surly fella named Wolverine), the mutant superheroes became hugely popular with comic book fans. Hollywood noticed, and brought them to the big screen in 2000, kicking off a franchise that is still cooking seventeen years later.

It all started as an esoteric comic book parody in 1984. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird self-published the first issue, goofing on Frank Miller’s “Ronin” and his deathly serious run on Marvel Comics’ “Daredevil.” By 1986, the heroes in a half-shell were the talk of the four-color community. CBS capitalized on the growing popularity with an animated series the following year, and a blockbuster feature film followed in 1990. The pizza-crazed reptiles mounted a triumphant big-screen comeback in 2014, ensuring that they’re likely here to stay.